A Marriage of Contrivance
Sincerity
A My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fan fiction
by grumpyoldpony
Totally unauthorized by the copyright holders: call it a parody
In anticipation of the event, Princess Celestia had tripled the track line leading to the Crystal Empire, and the funeral of Prince-Consort Shining Armor was indeed the most well-attended service in Equestria since Dame Knight-Commander-General Princess Priestess Pinkie Pie's self-planned posthumous So Long and Thanks for All the Cupcakes Final Blowout. His Dudeness lay in state for a week while old enemies grudgingly and old comrades gratefully paid their respects and the grieving wife and her grieving sister-in-law comforted each other as best they could. Some thoughtful pony designated him as a minor deity and put a small statue of His Fortunateness in the Garden of Equal Representation.
The Garden was just the most visible piece of that most unholy collection of laws, the Religious Freedom Acts. An enclosed space built upon the outskirts of the place grounds, with a translucent roof and walls and an earthen floor replete with carefully-cultivated wildflowers, the Garden housed monuments from every religion that any denizen of the Crystal Empire had encountered since the overthrow of Sombra the Meanie, all in response to the worship which that demi-mortal monster had demanded. He had been jealous of the cult of the Crystal Empress, or so said various historians, and in an effort to feed his own ego and control the hearts and purses of the herd he had banned all other worship. Only when Her current Imperial Majesty had demonstrated a distinct lack of desire for obeisance and ovation and had refused to make any form of Celestianity the official religion of the Empire had ordinary crystal ponies felt free to express their own ideas on the subject.
Set in a space that had previously been dedicated to tasteless and overly-expensive statues of The Usurper, it promised a place of tranquil, ecumenical reflection. The founding empress of the Empire got a spot early on, as did the Celestian Polytheists. The Monotheists had a statue too: a clever work of magic that appeared to be different alicorns from different angles. The Harmonites had their small set of seven statues, and the animists had their four. Counting the two Nightmare Cultist tributes – one with a young Bearer of Magic releasing Luna and the other with the Nightmare crushing her underhoof – Twilight Sparkle had the most representations at five, though the Empress was a close runner-up with four, and Dame Knight-Commander-General Princess Priestess Pinkie Pie had three: as a bearer, as founder of the Society of Infinite Digits, and as the inspiration of the much-maligned and frequently-high Rastafarmers.
Shrines, statues, placards, and nonfunctional monoliths littered the ground in a carefully-planned random scattering, with benches positioned so the more popular placements could be considered without impeding hoof traffic from schoolfoals on field trips, tourists from around the world, and locals looking for solace.
A naïve visitor might wrongly conclude that the beliefs of the crystal ponies were as varied as the Gardens, but the truth was more complicated. Almost before the Empress had placed her plot in the palace, Celestians had flooded in, intent on spreading the Awesome Word to the backwards foals. All of the denominations had some success, but Poly-Cadenzian teachings in particular dovetailed nicely with the empress worship that had thrived before The Growley One had taken over. Thus before a decade had passed Celestianity in its various forms – all incompatible with one another if one looked too closely, so nopony did – dominated, and the empress found it necessary to issue edicts curtailing its members from taking special privileges. The Celestians, of course, saw this as an attack on their liberty, and in response passed various laws granting themselves privileges, under the guise of “religious freedom.” Unfortunately, the only way for such bills to stand up against Equestrian Commonwealth standards was to word them vaguely and broadly.
For three months after her brother's funeral, Twilight stayed to help – not as a sitting monarch, since no self-respecting Crystal Pony recognized her as sovereign, but as adviser to the Great and Honorable Chancellor Pro Tem Spike the Brave and Glorious. Afterward she returned to Ponyville City, determined to let him explore his new role in the world, disappointed when he stayed another three months, distraught when year's end neared with only letters full of love but less solid than Spike's self, delighted when he burst into the palace on Hearth's Warming eve while she shared cocoa with the cleaning crew and a diamond dog ambassador.
“Twilight!” he said.
“Oh, Spike, it's so good-”
Spike grabbed her barrel and lofted her above his head. “It's terrible!”
“What's wrong? Is the Crystal Empire being invaded?”
Spike set her down roughly. “Worse,” he whispered. “I'm engaged to marry Cadence.”
Twilight rubbed her ears. “I'm sorry, Spike, I thought I heard you say that you're marrying my sister.”
Spike nodded, once.
Twilight turned to the her drinking companions. “Angel, Bugbug, Peat Moss, Ambassador Barker, please excuse us.”
She teleported herself and Spike to her personal antechamber. “What the feather are you thinking?”
“Language?” said Spike. Getting no response, he said, “It's complicated. Do you remember Lord Diamond Drill?”
Twilight, through decades of practice, suppressed an eye roll. Drill, the de facto leader of the ruling coalition in the Crystal Assembly, held more real power than the Prime Minister. Like all of the current crop of politicians, he knew of King Sombra only from tales passed down from his parent and grandparents, so his deference to the crown was token at best. He had been educated in Canterlot, and when he jumped into the provincial politics of the Empire, he had been like a shark jumping into a trout farm. She settled for a curt nod.
Spike said, “The House of Lords passed a bill ordering Cadance to marry before summer so she could produce an heir. The bill didn't have his name on it, but his fur was all over it. Then he announced that he was seeking her hoof in marriage!”
Twilight groaned. “Surely the court will overturn such a stupid law. She's effectively immortal, so she's neither going to die nor have a foal.”
“Maybe, of course, and probably not,” said Spike, “but we have to stall for time. That's when I had a great idea...” He trailed off and tapped his claw-tips together, looking smaller than he had in a long, long time.
Twilight smiled and shook her head. “You threw your hat in the ring.”
“My best top hat! There was one additional consequence,” said Spike. “Because we're both contending for the hand of a princess, Empire law allows either of us to demand a duel.”
“Don't tell me-”
“No, he didn't have enough time. I took off as soon as I announced my suit. But I just know he's going to demand satisfaction.”
“You could eat him for breakfast,” said Twilight. “Literally.”
“I don't want to hurt the poor stallion,” said Spike. “And I don't really want to marry Cadance. Not- not that I don't love her, but not like that, and... y'know.”
Twilight frowned as she considered the situation. Finally, she said, “This is not something we'll solve tonight. Join me for hot chocolate?”
“Are there donuts?”
They enjoyed hot chocolate and donuts, and after sleeping in on New Years' day they went to work. Everypony but the guards had the day off, but word of Spike's return spread and by noon her Forum of Friendship had gathered to help: Apple Bloom, who despite being ancient managed to appear as a gently-aged mare thanks to potions that she refused to share; Ditty Do; Lucky Eight in her snow-gardening gear; Starlight Kiss; and Rex Ruffington the Third.
She explained the situation, and despite the crisis they spent an enjoyable afternoon brainstorming solutions. The hot cocoa flowed (though Rex abstained, wanting a clear head), and though they worked into the evening, they were no closer to a solution than when they started.
That night Twilight and Spike started the serious work, reviewing the relevant laws in the Crystal Empire and the Commonwealth laws that governed basic sentient rights across Equestria. Had the pair been fifty years younger, they might have worked a day straight before falling asleep upon piles of books, but Twilight had the constitution of an alicorn (and a few cheat spells), and dragons could stay awake for almost as long as they could sleep, so they simple worked on, stopping only for snacks and stretches of outside air, and a quick missive to Twilight's staff that open court would not be held until further notice.
On day four, when or perhaps because their mental health had begun to deteriorate, Twilight suddenly put down a book on Saddle Arabian marriage practices.
“Idea!” she sang, so much like Dame Rarity that Spike stood suddenly and hit his head on an overhead arch.
“You have something?”
“Something crazy, Spike: something just crazy enough to work. Okay, I need you to stall for three weeks.”
“Why?”
“Celestianity took millennia to evolve into its present form. The cult of the Crystal Empress was the work of generations. I'm good, Spike, but even I need a little time. Now, I'm going to need about seven hundred letters.” Spike sighed and collected a stack of papers from a nearby cache.
Three weeks, two speeches, four interviews, one commission, and six hundred sixty-six letters later, Twilight strode into the Crystal Throne Room and bowed low to the Crystal Empress who graced the Crystal Throne with her Crystal Plot.
“Your Most Glorious Majesty,” she said, ignoring her sister's dismay at her black robe and obviously fake arms protruding from them. Or perhaps it was the circle-inscribed five-pointed inverted star adorning her flank, complete with caricatures of her dead friends' cutie marks that gained her disapproval. Or perhaps it was the rampant, resplendent, excessively-endowed pony-sized silver and sapphire statue of Tirek that she dragged behind her.
“Twilight,” said Cadance, “what the feather?”
“Pardon, oh Divine Demigoddess of Unbested Beauty?”
“The clothes! The statue! Why am I staring at his ugly face again?”
“Oh! Oh, a thousand pardons, Your Stunning Visageness. I am on my way to the Garden of Equal Representation, wherein I shall place this statue on behalf of The Temple of Tirek.”
Cadance twitched an eye. Cadance lifted a hoof. Cadance set a hoof down. “Carry on?”
Twilight found the spot set aside one week ago by the Religious Freedom Commission, after she had sent a letter requesting it. She placed the statue, careful not to damage the protruding seventh limb, to the right of the statue of Garden Mower the Rabbit-like, who prophesied that the number of her followers would double every years and a half but gave up after a few short years for lack of enough ponies on the planet, and the relatively new icon of Saint Scribble the Soft-Spoken Anticelest, who in her last years led a cult dedicated to living according to an idealized and utterly-unrealistic understanding of Fluttershy's lifestyle.
Spike was in place when she returned, pretending to examine some paperwork by staring blankly at it. She said coldly, backing up the sentiment with a frost-breath spell, “Hello, Sir Spike.”
“Princess,” he said, and a flicker of white flame escaped his mouth to set ablaze the papers before him. “I assume you are here to change your mind.”
“As Pinkie always says, assume makes a silly sop out of you and me. No, I give you one last change to back down.”
“Never!” said Spike. He stood on his hinds, his head nowhere near the ceiling but towering above the ponies. “I love Princess Cadenza, and it shall be I that marries her.”
“Get your pronouns right,” Twilight growled. “It shall be me that marries her. Renounce your suit.”
Spike leaped over the smoldering table and landed on all fours nose-to-nose with the alicorn. “Make me.”
The nobles scattered to locales other than the throne room, leaving only a few terrified guards and reporters pressed against walls as if to meld with them, and a confused Cadance.
“Now everypony,” she said uncertainly, “this is not how friends resolve their differences.”
They ignored her. Twilight carefully removed a gold-plated shoe and threw it down. Spike picked it up, crushed it, and handed it back to her. “When and where?” he said.
“Right now, in the drill fields.”
“Wait!” said Cadance. “This is pointless, Twilight. The law requires that I marry to produce an heir.”
“Ah,” said Twilight. “About that: it is my sincerely-held religious belief that the coupling of two mares can produce a foal.”
“That's ridiculous.”
“Don't mock my religion! The Temple of Tirek teaches, and it is clearly written in the Book of Loyalty, chapter five, verse eight hundred twenty-two, 'Omigosh, Palette Zoom, we didn't use protection! And then Palette Zoom was all like, Don't worry, Daring Do. If I knocked you up, I'll mare up and marry you.'”
“Twi,” said Cadance, “Wasn't that from one of Rainbow Dash's Daring Do fanfics?”
Twilight shrugged. “The Dashine Letters are canon. As an aside, the Cadenzian Memoirs are apocrypha. Regardless, the Temple of Tirek sees our genders as a non-issue vis-à-vis conception and foal-bearing, so my sincerely-held religious belief trumps your common sense.”
“You can't be serious.”
Twilight brushed past Spike's bulk and marched up to the throne. “I would do almost anything for you, My Most Magical Mistress of the Marches, but unless the Empire is in the business of judging the sincerity of ponies' beliefs, kindly cede the point.”
Cadance sighed and sat down on the throne. “Very well,” she said. “Please don't hurt Spike too badly.”
Twilight bowed briefly and turned to Spike. “Do you require a second?”
“No,” said Spike, “I'm ready now.”
Spike marched out of the castle, breathing fire and incinerating unfortunate curtains, chairs, and pleasant potted plants that came too close. Twilight shed her Tirek likeness and followed, her three shod hooves making a click-click-click-clop on the crystal floor, and her magic leaving a trail of rough ice. The reporters and guards followed them, and the nobles who had been brave enough to stay on the palace grounds followed them, and common ponies who had gathered at the first sight of a commotion followed them, and foals playing in the streets followed them, and random denizens of the Crystal Empire were swept up like sticks in a flash flood and and followed them, until it seems like the entire city was aware of the impending duel and wanting to watch, leaving Princess Cadenza seated and stewing and worrying for their safety.
Twilight Sparkle faced her former number one assistant upon the drill fields more often used by the Crystal Guard for large-scale maneuvers and joint exercises. Ponies pressed in all around them until Spike faced the sky and release a stream a fire. After the press of ponies panicked and pressed away, Twilight erected a shield sufficiently strong and spacious for a duel between a young dragon and a young alicorn.
The prevalence of hand-held cameras had increased greatly in recent decades, so that every self-respecting reporter had his own, if not his own photographer. A great many ponies took a great many pictures that day, such that a sufficiently-credulous historian might confidently reconstruct the fight, but in the heat of the moment it was impossible to be sure what happened.
Spike charged faster than pony eye could see, swiping empty air as Twilight teleported atop him and touched him with a hooftip. A blast forced them apart – she a good twenty lengths into the air and he into the incompressible ground, now compressed in the outline of a dragon. He erupted from the dirt with a terrifying roar and sprayed the area with fire. Twilight put up her shield, but even so smoke curled from her coat and her ethereal mane glowed white. A lightning bolt struck Spike with a deafening crack. He staggered and fell forward with a thundering crash.
Twilight prodded the dragon, put an ear to his barrel, and satisfied that he was still alive, released the shield. She unfolded her wide wings and flew back to the Crystal Palace, random denizens, foals, common ponies, nobles, guards, and reporters in her wake.
Aside from Cadance and her guard, the only other occupant of the throne room when Twilight returned was a furious Lord Diamond Drill, his pure white coat tinged red along his muzzle with unsuppressed anger. “Unacceptable!” he cried. “This Temple of Tirek nonsense isn't even a real religion!”
“Oh, I assure you,” said Twilight, “it is quite real. It is entered in the official Canterlot Registry of Religions, which I believe the Religious Freedom Acts cite as the canonical source. You will find a list of members right here.” She floated sheets of paper to the Lord and the Princess, who perused the single-spaced, three-columned, double-sided document.
“Aha!” said Drill. “I know some of these names. The Riches are avowed atheists, as are clan Belle.”
“Perhaps they found the message compelling,” said Twilight. She floated a hoof-bound copy of The Gospel According to Lord Tirek to him. He took a look at the cover and set it down – carefully – on a nearby table.
“If all of that is settled,” said Twilight, “I believe that you and I have a dispute about whom should marry the Princess.”
“You're a foreign ruler!” said Drill.
Cadance cleared her throat. “Lord Drill, I am quite sure that no law, including the recent directive at stake here, restricts me from marrying a ruler."
Twilight removed a second shoe – the first still being a pile of twisted metal on the throne room floor – and tossed it to Drill. He stared at it uncomprehending until suddenly his red face turned ghostly white, and he turned and stomped out. At a safe distance from Twilight, he called back, “I'll take this to the courts!”
Twilight turned to Cadance. “What do you say, Oh Lover of Mortals and Mistress of Love? Marry me?”
Cadance smiled, quite possibly the first time she had since Shiney's passing. “Why not? Better you than any stallion that would woo and wed me then bed me for babies.”
There were cries of favoritism and royal privilege, but the Imperial courts quickly dismissed Lord Diamond Drill's lawsuit and the Commonwealth courts ignored it entirely, leaving Princess Cadance to marry Princess-Consort Twilight Sparkle.
Nopony complained overmuch when Her Imperial Majesty and the Princess-Consort adopted an earth pony colt. And while it took years and tears, the Religious Freedom Acts were eventually repealed leaving only the Garden in their wake. Other than a minor cult two centuries later which caused a bit of trouble and almost overthrew the Freebird Republic, The Temple of Tirek quietly faded into obscurity.
Fin